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THE 


FUTURE  OF  THE  NORTH-WEST 


IN   CONNECTION   WITH 


T&e  Scfeeme  of  Reconstraction 


WITHOUT  NEW 


BY 


EGBERT   DALE   OWEN,  (^ 


PHILADELPHIA  : 

CRISSY  &  MARKLEY,  PRINTERS,  GOLDSMITHS  HALL,  LIBRARY  STREET 

1863. 


:          .-   •    '    ' 

THE 


FUTURE  OF  THE  NORTH-WEST 


IN   CONNECTION    WITH 


THE    SCHEME    OF   RECONSTRUCTION 
WITHOUT  NEW  ENGLAND. 


ADDRESSED     TO    THE     PEOPLE     OF    INDIANA. 


MORE  than  a  third  of  a  century  since,  I  found  a  home,  Citi- 
zens of  Indiana,  among  you.  Kindly  you  received  me.  Largely 
have  you  bestowed  on  me  your  confidence.  I  owe  to  you 
honorable  station  and  a  debt  of  gratitude.  Let  me  endeavor, 
now  in  your  hour  of  danger,  to  repay,  if  in  part  I  may,  that  debt. 

On  the  future  of  our  country  clouds  and  darkness  rest.  We  are 
engaged  in  a  war  as  terrible  as  any  which  history  records ;  an  out- 
rage on  civilization,  if  it  be  not  God's  agency  for  a  great  purpose. 
All  good  citizens  earnestly  desire  its  termination.  The  fervent 
longing  of  every  Christian  man  and  woman  is  for  the  restoration 
of  peace. 

To  this  righteous  desire  there  are  addressed,  especially  here  in 
our  North- West,  certain  proposals  of  compromise  and  accommo- 
dation. Shall  we  take  counsel  as  to  what  these  are  worth  \ 
Can  we  reason  together  on  a  subject  of  interest  more  vital  to 
ourselves  and  to  our  children  ? 

But  before  we  scan  the  future,  let  us  glance  at  the  past.  Ere 
we  advance,  let  us  determine  where  we  stand,  and  asceHain  how 
we  came  hither.  Looking  back  on  our  steps  throughout  the 
last  two  years,  let  us,  in  a  dispassionate  spirit,  by  the  aid  of 
authentic  and  unimpeachable  documents,  very  briefly  examine 
the  causes,  underlying  a  stupendous  national  convulsion,  which 
have  resulted  in  the  present  condition  of  things. 

The  secession  ordinance  passed  the  Convention  of  South  Caro- 
lina, December  20,  1860.  The  next  day,  December  21,  the 
Convention  adopted  the  "Declaration  of  Causes,"  justifying 
secession.  In  language  plain  as  can  be  desired  are  these  causes 
sei  forth.  They  all  center  in  one  complaint,  Northern  encroach- 
ment on  slavery  ;  there  is  no  other  cause  alleged. 

What  proof  of  such  encroachment  is   offered  ?      First,  the 

E. 


2  THE   FUTURE   OF   THE   NOKTH-WEST. 

allegation  tliat  "  for  years  past"  fourteen  Northern  States,  among 
which  Indiana  is  named,  "  have  deliberately  refused  to  fulfill 
their  Constitutional  obligations"  (as  regards  the  fugitive-slave- 
law)  by  "  enacting  laws  which  either  nullify  the  acts  of  Congress 
or  render  useless  any  attempt  to  execute  them."  But  if  you  have 
looked  through  our  statute-book,  you  know  that  no  such  law 
then  existed,  or  ever  existed,  there.  That  solemn  Declaration, 
inaugurating  a  war  as  fearful  as  ever  desolated  a  nation,  is  based, 
so  far  as  regards  our  State,  on  a  statement  either  ignoraiitly  or 
wilfully  false. 

If,  in  regard  to  any  of  the  other  States  named,  there  be  truth 
in  the  allegation  ; — if,  in  any  one  or  more  of  these,  there  existed 
then,  a  state  law  nullifying  or  rendering  nugatory  a  Constitu- 
tional provision; — none  knew  better  than  these  South  Carolinians 
what  their  easy,  peaceful,  effectual  remedy  was  : — an  appeal  to 
the  Supreme  Court.  That  Court  has  sovereign  control  over  all 
unconstitutional  laws.  Had  the  South  no  chance  of  justice — 
of  more  than  justice — before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  ?  Be  the  Dred  Scott  decision  the  reply ! 

A  thing,  to  be  credited,  must  have  some  semblance  of  common 
sense,  will  any  man  believe  that  the  citizens  of  South  Caro- 
lina— who  would  find  it  difficult  to  prove  that  by  the  unconstitu- 
tionality  of  State  laws  at  the  North  they  had  lost  twenty  slaves 
since  their  State  first  joined  the  Union — will  any  sane  man  be- 
lieve that  South  Carolina  sought  to  break  up  that  Union  for 
cause  so  utterly  trivial  as  that  ? 

No !  far  deeper  must  we  search  for  the  true  cause.  It  is 
plainly  set  forth  in  the  latter  paragraphs  of  the  Declaration,  in 
which  the  Convention  speaks,  not  of  any  special  laws,  but  of  "  the 
action  of  the  non-si aveholding  States. 

It  declares  that  these  States  have  "  denied  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty established  in  fifteen  of  the  States  and  recognized  by  the 
Constitution ;"  that  they  "  have  denounced  as  sinful  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  ;"  that  they  u  have  united  in  the  election  of  a 
man  to  the  high  office  of  President  of  the  United  States  whose 
opinions  and  purposes  are  hostile  to  slavery  ;"  who  declares  that 
"  the  Government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave,  half 
free,"  and  that  "  the  public  mind  must  rest  in  the  belief  that 
slavery  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction."  And  it  winds 
up  by  this  assertion  :  "  All  hope  of  remedy  is  rendered  vain  by 
tne  fact  that  the  public  opinion  of  the  North  has  invested  a  great 
political  error  with  the  sanctions  of  a  more  erronious  religious 
belief." 

These  South  Carolinian  sentiments,  afterward  endorsed  by 
every  seceding  State,  are  doubtless,  in  substance,  sincere.  They 
may  be  received  as  the  secession  creed.  Though  loosely  worded 


THE   FUTURE   OF   THE   KORTH-WEST.  3 

they  are  intelligible.  Taken  in  connection  with  the  steadily- 
progressing  increase,  disclosed  each  ten  years  by  the  census,  of 
population  and  Congressional  votes  and  consequent  political  in- 
fluence in  the  Free  States  as  compared  with  the  Slave,  they  dis- 
close, beyond  question,  the  true  cause  of  the  gigantic  insurrection 
that  has  made  desolate  so  many  domestic  hearths,  and  spread 
war  and  devastation  where  peace  and  tranquillity  used  to  reign. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  true,  that  the  Northern  States,  as  States, 
have  denied  the  rights  of  Southern  property,  or  denounced 
slavery  as  sinful.  The  Convention  could  only  mean  that  certain 
citizens  of  these  States  had  expressed  such  sentiments  ;  or  as  they 
afterward  phrase  it,  that  public  opinion  in  the  North  had  given 
the  sanction  of  religion  to  a  great  political  error. 

I  pray  you  to  remark  that  the  South  secedes  from  the  Union 
"because  of  these  opinions.  She  will  not  remain  in  fellowship 
with  States  in  which  such  opinions  are  expressed.  She  holds 
that  men  otfght  not  to  be  allowed  to  say  or  to  write  that  slavery 
is  sinful,  or  that  religion  does  not  sanction  it.  She  hangs  those 
who  say  or  write  such  things  within  her  own  borders.*  To 
satisfy  her,  such  opinions  must  be  suppressed  also  among  us. 
But  the  Constitution  provides  that  "  Congress  shall  make  no 
law  abridging  the  liberty  of  speech  or  of  the  press."  Here  is  a 
difficulty.  How  shall  we  of  the  North  satisfy  a  slaveholding 
South,  unless  we  not  only  surrender  the  dearest  of  a  freeman's 
rights,  but  also  either  violate  the  Constitution,  or  else  amend  it 
so  that  free  thought  and  free  speech  shall  be  among  past  and 
forgotten  things  ? 

But  these  outspoken  sentiments  are  not  our  only  offense. 
We  are  accused  of  having  elected  a  President  "  whose  opinions 
and  purposes  are  hostile  to  slavery ;"  and  who  believes  that 
"  slavery  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction." 

Because  of  the  election  of  such  a  President,  the  slaveholders 
of  the  South  secede.  They  do  not  wait  to  see  what  he  will  do. 
They  secede  before  he  is  inaugurated.  They  secede,  then,  not 
because  of  his  acts,  but  because  of  his  opinions. 

His  opinions  on  the  subject  of  slavery;  the  same  opinions 
which,  for  a  century  past,  have  been  spreading  and  swelling 
into  action  throughout  the  civilized  world ;  the  same  opinions 
which  have  taken  practical  form  and  shape — which  have  become 
law — till  not  a  Christian  nation  in  Europe,  Spain  alone  ex. 
cepted,  stands  out  against  them.  Look  at  the  array  of  names  f 

*  "  Let  an  abolitionist  come  within  the  borders  of  South  Carolina,  if  we  can  catch 
him  we  will  try  him,  and  notwithstanding  all  the  interference  of  all  the  Govern- 
ments on  earth,  including  the  Federal  Government,  we  will  hang  him." — Senator 
Preston,  in  debate  in  U.  S.  Senate,  January,  1838. 

'*  Jf  chance  throw  an  abolitionist  into  our  hands,  he  may  expect  a  felon's  death." 
•—Senator  Hammond  of  South .  Carolina,  in  Senate,  1836. 


4  THE    FUTUKE    OF   THE    NORTH-WEST. 

England  led  the  way.  In  1834:  she  emancipated  all  her  slaves. 
King  Oscar  of  Sweden  followed  her  example  in  1846.  Then 
came  Denmark  in  1847 ;  France,  in  1848  ;  Portugal,  in  1856  ; 
the  vast  empire  of  Russia,  in  1862.  Finally,  with  nearly  thirty 
years'  experience  in  English  colonies  and  fifteen  years'  experi- 
ence in  those  of  France  before  her  eyes,  plain,  practical,  un- 
imaginative Holland,  by  a  vote  in  her  Chambers  of  forty-five  to 
seven,  gave  freedom,  with  compensation,  to  her  forty-five  thou- 
sand slaves  j  to  take  effect  on  the  first  of  July  next. 

And  our  offense  in  Southern  eyes — an  offense  so  grievous  that 
it  is  held  to  justify  insurrection  and  its  thousand  horrors — 
our  unpardonable  sin  is,  that  we  have  elected  a  President 
whose  opinions  regarding  negro  servitude  are  those  of  all 
Christendom ;  whose  belief  that  "  slavery  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction,"  is  but  the  plain  inevitable  deduction  from 
the  last  thirty  years'  history  of  the  civilized  world. 

Observe,  1  pray,  that  in  thus  setting  forth  the  causes  which 
produced  this  fratricidal  war,  I  have  let  the  South  speak  for 
herself.  JSTor  have  I  cited  against  her  vagrant  opinions,  care- 
lessly expressed  by  her  citizens.  I  have  quoted,  word  for  word, 
from  her  solemn  deliberate  "  Declaration  of  Causes ;"  that  docu- 
ment which  is  to  Secessiondom,  what  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was  to  the  United  States.  Out  of  her  own  mouth  I 
have  condemned  her. 

Yet  I  am  not  assuming  to  sit  in  judgment  on  her  motives.  I 
but  show  you  where  the  difficulty  lies,  and  how  deep-sunk  and 
radical  it  is.  Opinions  (she  declares)  stand  in  the  way.  Based 
on  a  religious  sentiment,  these  opinions  render  vain  (she  says)  all 
hope  of  remedy ;  for  her  Government  is  founded  on  opinions 
diametrically  the  reverse.  And  I  show  you  further,  that  in  this 
she  stands  alone  among  the  nations  calling  themselves  civilized. 
Alexander  H.  Stephens,  whom,  in  February,  1861,  she  named 
her  Yice  President,  with  commendable  frankness  admits  that 
she  does  so.  In  Savannah,  the  Mayor  presiding,  Mr.  Stephens, 
addressing  an  immense  crowd  on  the  21st  of  March  following 
his  election,  spoke  thus :  "  Slavery  is  the  natural  and  moral 
condition  of  the  negro.  This,  our  new  Government,  is  the  first, 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  based  upon  this  great  physical,  philo- 
sophical, and  moral  truth."* 

Alone  she  stands  !  the  first  government,  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  founded  on  the  principle — "  Slavery  is  good ;  slavery  is 
moral ;  slavery  is  just ;"  the  only  people  in  all  the  eighteen 

*  Speech  of  Mr.  Stephens  as  reported  in  the  "  Savannah  Republican"  It  \& 
thence  copied  into  "  Putnam's  Rebellion  Record"  vol.  i,  document  48,  pp.  44  to  49. 
The  Republican,  in  publishing  this  address,  says :  "  Mr.  Stephens  took  his  seat  amid 
a  burst  of  enthusiasm  and  applause,  such  as  the  Athenaeum  has  never  had  displayed 
within  ita  walls  in  the  memory  of  the  oldest  inhabitant." 


THE   FUTURE   OF   THE   NORTH-WEST.  5 

centuries  since  Christ  preached  justice  and  mercy,  who  rose  in 
rebellion  because,  among  their  brethren,  His  religion  was  ap- 
pealed to  in  favor  of  that  emancipation  which,  within  the  last 
thirty  years,  England,  and  France,  and  Sweden,  and  Denmark, 
and  Portugal,  and  Russia,  and  Holland,  have  all  conceded — 
a  tribute  to  Christian  civilization. 

Thus,  then.  Opinions  not  carried  out  in  practice — opinions 
unfavorable  to  slavery  expressed  in  the  North,  and  held  by  the 
President  elect — the  same  opinions  that  are  entertained  and 
have  been  acted  upon  by  almost  every  civilized  nation — these, 
according  to  Southern  declaration,  were  the  immediate  causes 
of  the  war :  opinions,  not  acts ;  the  acts  were  all  the  other  way. 

Inaugurated  on  the  4th  of  March,  1861,  Abraham  Lincoln 
expressly  reassumed,  in  his  Message,  the  ground  occupied  by 
himself,  and  by  a  large  majority  of  his  supporters,  before  the 
election.  "  I  have  no  purpose"  (said  he),  "  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States  where 
it  exists."  He  went  much  further.  Alluding,  in  the  same 
Message,  to  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which  had 
passed  Congress  on  the  28th  of  February,  to  the  effect  that  no 
amendment  shall  ever  be  made  to  the  Constitution  authorizing 
Congress  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  any  State,  the  President 
said  :  "  I  have  no  objection  to  its  being  made  express  and  irrevo- 
caD'e. 

This  was  the  first  act :  an  offer  sanctioned  by  Congress,  en- 
dorsed by  the  President,  so  to  amend  the  Constitution,  that 
never,  while  the  world  lasted,  should  the  power  be  given  to 
Congress,  by  any  subsequent  amendment,  to  interfere  with 
slavery. 

The  scene  when,  on  Mr.  Corwin's  motion,  this  amendment 
passed,  is  recorded  in  the  newspapers  of  the  day.  "As  the  vote 
proceeded,  the  excitement  was  intense,  and  on  the  announce- 
ment of  the  result,  the  inexpressible  enthusiasm  of  the  members 
and  the  crowded  galleries  found  vent  in  uproarious  demonstra- 
tions. All  feel  that  it  is  the  harbinger  of  peace."'55' 

Was  it  the  harbinger  of  peace  ?  Did  this  concession — bor- 
dering surely  on  humiliation — a  promise,  as  to  slavery,  never 
through  all  time  to  amend  our  acts  no  matter  how  we  may 
change  our  opinions — did  this  unheard-of  concession  to  the 
slave  interest  conciliate  the  South,  or  arrest  her  action?  It 
passed  by,  like  the  idle  wind.  State  after  State  seceded.  Se- 
curity against  the  encroachment  alleged  to  be  intended — the 
amplest  within  the  bounds  of  possibility — had,  indeed,  been 
offered ;  but  the  remedy  did  not  reach  the  case.  Opinions  re- 
mained unchanged ;  and  the  rebellion  was  against  opinions. 

*  N.  Y.  Commercial,  February  28,  1861. 


0  THE    FUTURE    OF   THE   NORTH-WEST. 

Men  in  the  North  still  said  that  human  servitude  was  sinful. 
The  President  still  believed  that  "  slavery  is  in  the  course  of  ul- 
timate extinction."  No  fraternity  with  such  men  !  No  obedience 
to  such  a  President ! 

And  yet  this  President,  in  the  same  Inaugural  from  which  I 
have  quoted,  pushed  forbearance  to  the  verge  of  that  boundary 
beyond  which  it  ceases  to  be  a  virtue.  "The, Government"  (he 
said  to  the  Secessionists  already  in  arms  against  lawful  author- 
ty) — "  the  Government  will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no 
conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors."  And  in  mild 
but  cogent  terms  he  reminded  them  of  his  and  their  relative 
situations,  and  of  the  final  necessity  which  his  position  imposed 
upon  him.  "  You  have  no  oath "  (he  said)  "  registered  in 
Heaven  to  destroy  the  Government:  while  I  have  the  most 
solemn  one  to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  it." 

He  spoke  to  the  deaf  adder.  As  if  they  had  sworn  before 
God  to  destroy  the  Government  under  which,  for  eighty  years, 
they  had  enjoyed  prosperity  and  protection,  they  became  the  ag- 
gressors. Unassailed  by  that  Government,  they  opened  fire,  on 
the  memorable  twelfth  of  April,  from  the  batteries  of  Charles- 
ton, on  Fort  Sumter. 

The  echo  of  that  cannonade  reverberated  throughout  the 
Union.  The  North  rose  up,  like  a  strong  man  from  sleep.  It 
needed  not  the  President's  Proclamation,  issued  three  days 
thereafter,  to  call  men  forth.  In  advance  of  that  call,  the 
farmer  had  left  his  plow  in  the  furrow ;  the  mechanic  had  de- 
serted his  workshop.  The  People  had  taken  the  war  in  hand. 

Such  were  the  causes  of  this  rebellion ;  such  were  the  acts  on 
either  side. 

What  have  been  the  results  ?  The  war,  as  wars  in  their  com- 
mencement always  are,  was  popular.  Men  engaged  in  it,  as  in 
a  new  and  stirring  enterprise  men  are  wont  to  do,  with  en- 
thusiasm. Unmingled  successes,  a  prompt  and  triumphant 
termination — these,  as  always  happens,  were  confidently  antici- 
pated. But  the  usual  checkered  fortunes  of  war  attended  our 
arms ;  now  a  victory,  now  a  defeat.  The  contest  was  protracted. 
Visionary  hopes  of  speedy  triumph  faded  away.  Then  came 
revulsion  of  feeling,  sinking  of  spirit.  There  never  was  a  pro- 
tracted war  in  this  world,  no  matter  how  successful  in  the  end, 
without  just  such  a  reaction.  How  did  the  souls  of  our  revo- 
lutionary fathers,  sore  tried,  sink  within  them,  year  after  year — 
how  often  did  Washington  himself  despair — before  the  final  vic- 
tory that  heralded  American  Independence  !  England  is  still  one 
of  the  greatest  nations  of  the  world,  proud,  powerful,  prosperous ; 
yet,  during  her  five  years'  Peninsular  war  (in  Spain  against 
Napoleon)  the  depression  in  England  was  almost  beyond  ex* 


THE   FUTUKE   OF   THE   NOKTH-WEST.  7 

ample.  At  the  commencement  of  that  war  the  people  accepted 
it  with  acclamation.  Opposite  parties  in  Parliament  vied  with 
each  other  in  their  zeal  to  vote  men  and  money.  Before  a  year 
had  passed,  how  changed  was  the  scene !  The  retreat  and  de- 
feat at  Corunna  (the  Bull  Run  of  that  year's  campaign)  plunged 
the  nation  in  despair.  Nothing  was  talked  of  but  the  stupid 
blunders  of  the  Government,  its  absurd  and  contradictory 
orders,  its  gross  ignorance  of  the  first  principles  of  war.  Croak-  > 
ers  spoke  loudly  of  the  folly  of  any  attempt  to  check  the  pro- 
gress of  the  French  arms  in  Spain.  Universal  distrust  seized  the 
public  mind.  The  Ministry  k^pt  their  places  with  extreme  dif- 
hculty.  But  England's  pluck  bore  her  through.  She  spent 
four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  a  year,  bought  gold  at  thirty 
per  cent  premium  to  pay  her  troops,  persevered  to  the  end — 
and  conquered :  yet  not  till  her  Government  stocks,  ordinarily 
at  90,  had  come  to  stand  habitually  at  65  ;  nay,  before  Na- 
poleon was  finally  conquered,  had  fallen  to  53  (payable  in  de- 
preciated paper),  and  had  been  negotiated  by  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  at  that  rate. 

Nor  let  it  be  imagined  that  it  was  the  uninformed  masses 
alone  who  despaired.  The  greatest  men  shared  the  doubt 
whether  England  was  not  tottering  to  her  destruction.  Sir 
Walter  Scott  wrote  to  a  friend:  "These  cursed,  double  cursed 
news  from  Spain  have  sunk  my  spirits  so  much  that  I  am  al- 
most at  disbelieving  a  Providence.  There  is  an  evil  fate  upon 
us  in  all  we  do  at  home  or  abroad."  A  letter  of  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  is  still  more  gloomy.  "  I  believe,  like  you "  (he 
writes  to  a  friend  at  Vienna),  "  in  a  resurrection,  because  I  be- 
lieve in  the  immortality  of  civilization ;  but  a  dark  and  stormy 
night,  a  black  series  of  ages,  may  be  prepared  for  our  posterity 
before  the  dawn  of  a  better  day.  The  race  of  man  may  reach 
the  promised  land,  but  there  is  no  assurance  that  the  present 
generation  will  not  perish  in  the  wilderness."  * 

Such  is  the  dark  valley,  shadowed  by  despondency,  through 
which  even  the  most  powerful  nation,  once  engaged  in  a  great 
contest  of  life  and  death,  must  consent  to  travel  ere  it  emerges 
to  the  light.  If  we  were  not  prepared  to  traverse  its  depths — if 
we  have  not  courage  to  endure  even  to  the  end — we  ought  never 
to  have  entered  upon  the  gloomy  road  at  all.  Many  good  men 
thought,  at  the  outset,  that  the  wiser  course  was  to  let  the  de- 
luded South  go  in  peace.  A  thousand  times  better  to  have 
done  this  than  to  falter  and  look  back  now,  false  to  the  great 
task  we  have  undertaken,  recreant  to  the  solemn  purpose  on 

*  A  pamphlet  by  C.  J.  Stille,  on  this  subject,  giving  many  more  details,  is' well 
worth  studying.  <  Its  title  is,  "How  a  free  people  conduct  a  great  war."  Published 
by  Collins,  Philadelphia. 


8  THE   FUTURE    OF   THE   NORTH-WEST. 

which  we  have  lavished  millions  of  treasure,  to  which  we  have 
get  the  seal  of  our  best  blood.  That  which  might  have  been 
graceful  concession  two  years  since,  would  be  base  submission 
to-day. 

Base  and  unavailing !  "What  are  the  proposals  now,  rife 
throughout  the  North-West,  among  the  friends  of  peace-at- 
any-price?  "Worst  devise  of  feeble  or  faithless  heads,  busily 
echoed  by  thousands  of  faint  hearts,  embodied  in  public  resolu- 
tions, trumpeted  through  hundreds  of  newspapers,  what  is  the 
favorite  project,  long  matured  in  secret,  that  is  urged  upon  you 
to-day  by  the  enemies  of  the  war  and  of  the  Administration 
that  conducts  it  ? 

Of  vast  import  is  that  project,  yet  a  few  words  suffice  to 
state  it.  The  greatest  of  human  changes  can  be  expressed  in 
one  word — Death  ! 

The  project  is,  to  reconstruct  the  Union,  leaving  out  the  New 
England  States. 

This  plan  is  spoken  of  as  a  compromise.  The  South,  aban- 
doning her  avowed  intention  to  erect  a  separate  purely  slave- 
holding  Confederacy,  is  to  consent  to  receive  into  her  fellow- 
ship a  portion  of  the  Northern  States.  The  Northern  States,  in 
return,  are  to  abandon  six  of  their  number ;  those  six  in  which 
the  opinions  against  which  the  war  is  waged  chiefly  prevail. 

But  this  plan  is  no  after-thought — no  compromise  whatever. 
It  has  been  in  the  minds  and  intentions  of  the  Southern  leaders 
from  the  very  commencement  of  the  rebellion. 

I  vouch  for  the  truth  of  the  following :  Early  in  January, 
1861,  a  few  days  after  South  Carolina  had  seceded,  and  before 
any  other  State  had  followed  her  example,  Senator  Benjamin, 
of  Louisiana,  said  to  one  of  the  Foreign  Ministers :  "  A  great 
revolution  has  commenced.  It  will  end  in  the  separation  from 
the  Union  either  of  the  slave  States  or  of  New  England." 

Within  a  few  days  of  the  same  time,  before  Jefferson  Davis 
had  left  Washington,  Mrs.  Davis,  conversing  with  a  friend  from 
Pennsylvania,  who  had  been  lamenting  a  probable  separation, 
replied,  in  substance:  "Do  not  afflict  yourself.  We  shall  not 
separate  from  Pennsylvania,  nor  New  York,  nor  New  Jersey ; 
they,  like  the  North- West,  are  our  natural  allies." 

It  was  the  original  plan,  abandoned  for  a  time,  when  the 
entire  North  rose  in  arms  ;  unavowed  even  now ;  yet  secretly 
fomented  and  sanctioned  ever  since  the  elections  seemed  to  re- 
sult adversely  to  the  Administration,  and  since  meetings  and 
newspapers,  calling  themselves  Democratic,  have  been  sending 
forth,  to  an  enemy  in  arms,  words  of  sympathy  and  comfort. 

Well  might  such  a  plan  be  the  first  choice  of  the  secessionists ! 
Well  may  they  intrigue  with  the  North- West  to  favor  and 


THE   FUTUKE    OF   THE   NORTH-WEST.  9 

adopt  it  now  !  Far  better  for  them  than  a  mere  Southern 
Confederacy,  never  was  a  more  specious  nor  a  more  daring 
device  to  uphold  a  sinking  cause ! 

Look  at  it,  I  pray  you ;  not  vaguely  or  hastily,  but  carefully, 
and  in  all  its  practical  details.  In  the  Senate,  thirty  Southern 
votes  to  twenty-two  Northern;  in  the  House,  ninety  Southern 
votes  to  a  hundred  and  thirteen  Northern.  One  House  hope- 
lessly gone ;  while  twelve  votes  changed  would  give  a  Southern 
majority  invthe  other.  And  when  has  Congress  seen  the  day 
when  twice  twelve  votes  could  not  have  been  had  from  North- 
ern Representatives  for  any  measure  the  South  saw  fit  to  propose  ? 

Just  North  enough  in  the  scheme  to  afford  protection  and 
support  to  slavery  ;  and  not  North  enough  to  exert  over  it  the 
slightest  influence  or  control. 

Plausible,  too !  "  You  have  a  majority  in  one  House,  and  we 
in  the  other.  What  can  be  more  fair  ?" 

But  mark  the  workings  of  the  plan  !  A  free  State  applies 
for  admission.  The  Bill  must  pass  the  Senate.  Will  it  pass? 
Slaveholders  have  to  decide  that  question.  Will  they  relin- 
quish the  balance  of  power  which  they  hold  in  their  grasp  ? 
While  they  retain  their  reason,  never  !  A  slave  State  for  every 
free  State  admitted ;  that  will  be  the  rule.  The  controlling 
majority  in  the  Senate,  therefore,  perpetual ! 

Think,  next,  of  the  nominations  by  the  President — a  Tres^ 
ident,  of  course,  who  believes  in  the  justice,  and  in  the  per 
petnal  duration  of  negro  slavery — for  none  other  will  be  suf- 
fered to  take  his  seat ;  nominations  of  Cabinet  officers ;  of 
Foreign  Ministers  and  Consuls;  of  Judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court ;  of  Generals  in  the  army  ;  of  men  to  all  lucrative 
Post-offices ;  of  Registers  and  Receivers,  and  all  the  long  list 
of  other  nominations  to  offices  in  the  gift  of  the  President  and 
confirmatory  by  the  Senate.  Will  the  name  of  one  man  pass 
the  ordeal  who  thinks  human  servitude  a  sin  or  an  evil,  or  who 
believes  that  "slavery  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction?" 

It  will  be  a  Senate  requiring  a  political  test  for  office  that 
would  have  excluded  Washington,  if  proposed  for  Brigadier* 
General,  or  Jefferson,  if  nominated  as  a  member  of  the  Cabinet. 
For  Washington,  on  the  9th  of  September,  1786,  wrote  to  John 
F.  Mercer,  of  Maryland :  "  It  is  among  my  first  wishes  to  see 
some  -plan  adopted  by  which  slavery  in  this  country  may  be 
abolished  by  law."  *  And  Jefferson,  in  his  "  Summary  View  of 
the  Rights  of  British  America,"  originally  published  in  August, 
1774,  said:  "The  abolition  of  domestic  slavery  is  the  great 
object  of  desire  in  these  Colonies,  where  it  was,  unhappily,  intro- 
duced in  their  infant  state  ;"f  while,  eight  years  later,  in  his 

*  Sparks'  Washington,  voL  ix.,  p.  159.          f  Jefferson's  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  135. 


It)  THE   FUTURE   OF   THE   NOKTH-WEST. 

"  Notes  on  Yirginia,"  be  falls  into  that  "  erroneous  religious  be- 
lief" which,  according  to  the  South  Carolina  Declaration,  ren- 
ders hopeless  all  remedy  for  the  grievances  of  the  South. 
Adverting  to  a  possible  conflict,  in  the  future,  between  slave 
and  slaveholder,  he  says:  "The  Almighty  has  no  attribute 
which  can  take  side  with  us  in  such  a  contest."  * 

If  this  view  of  revolutionary  opinions  should  happen  to  sur- 
prise you,  it  will  be  because  you  are  less  accurately  informed  on 
the  subject  than  the  Yice  President  of  the  insurrectionary  States. 
Let  Mr.  Stephens  have  credit  for  the  honesty  with  which,  in 
the  address  from  which  I  have  already  quoted,  he  made  this 
confession  :  "The  prevailing  ideas  entertained  by  Jefferson  and 
most  of  the  leading  statesmen,  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the 
old  Constitution,  were,  that  the  enslavement  of  the  African  was 
in  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature ;  that  it  was  wrong  in  prin- 
ciple, socially,  morally,  and  politically."  The  "  ultimate  extinc- 
tion" heresy,  too,  was  shared  by  these  men,  as  Mr.  Stephens  thus 
reminds  us:  "Slavery  was  an  evil  they  knew  not  well  how  to 
deal  with  ;  but  the  general  opinion  of  the  men  of  that  day  was, 
that,  somehow  or  other,  in  the  order  of  Providence,  the  institu- 
tion would  be  evanescent,  and  pass  away."  f 

Reconstruct  the  Union  without  New  England,  and  no  man 
who  shares  these  revolutionary  sentiments, — no  man  who  believes 
as  Washington  and  Jefferson  believed, — can  ever  reach  the 
Presidential  chair,  or  ever  receive,  from  the  occupant  of  that 
chair,  any  office,  at  home  or  abroad,  civil  or  military,  of  any 
importance  whatever. 

The  vast  patronage  of  the  Government — the  tens  of  millions 
annually  in  its  gift — would  become  a  gigantic  bribe.  Its  demor- 
alizing influence  in  calling  forth  professions  of  a  money-getting 
creed,  would  be  immense. 

But  well  would  it  be  if  this  wholesale  premium  on  hypocrisy 
were  the  only  evil,  or  the  worst  evil,  which  a  South-controlled 
Congress  would  bring  upon  us.  What  laws  would  such  a  Con- 
gress pass  ? 

The  characteristic  political  doctrine  universally  asserted 
throughout  the  South  is  this  :  "  The  Constitution  provides  that 
'  the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States.'  Therefore  all  citi- 
zens are  entitled,  wherever  they  may  reside,  to  equal  rights  of 
property.  Neither  the  Federal  Government  nor  a  State  has  a 
right  to  discriminate  between  different  kinds  of  property,  legally 
held.  It  is  unconstitutional  to  declare  by  law  that  any  legally 

*  Jeffersorix  Writings,  vol.  viii.,  p.  404. 

\  Address  of  A.  H.  Stephens,  reported,  as  stated  in  a  previous  note,  in  the  "  Sa- 
vannah Mepublican" 


THE   FUTURE   OF   THE   NOBTH-WEST.  11 

held  property  is  property  in  one  portion  of  the  Union,  and  is  not 
property  in  another.  It  is  equally  unconstitutional  for  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  or  for  any  State,  to  pass  laws  which  shall  pro- 
hibit the  transfer  of  any  legally  held  property  from  one  portion 
of  the  Union  to  another ;  or  to  enact  that  any  one  species  of 
property  legally  used  in  any  one  State  or  Territory  may  not  be 
used  in  another. 

"  But  slaves  are  property :  as  absolutely  and  legally  articles  of 
merchandise  (though  differing  in  kind)  as  horses,  or  cattle,  or 
ilocks  of  sheep ;  property  righteously  as  well  as  legally  held ; 
property  the  holding  of  which  is  based  on  a  great  physical, 
philosophical,  and  moral  truth,  and  is  sanctioned  by  religion. 

"Therefore,  wherever  one  citizen  may  lawfully  take  or  use  his 
cattle  and  horses  and  flocks  of  sheep,  another  citizen  may  law- 
fully take  and  use  his  slaves.  To  prohibit  him  fetfi  so  doing  is 
a  moral  wrong,  as  well  as  an  unconstitutional  aolp  * 

That  is  the  openly-avowed  doctrine  and  demand  of  the  South. 
Individual  exceptions  to  such  opinions  there  are,  of  course,  in 
the  slave  States,  just  as,  in  the  free  States,  men  are  found  who 
believe  that  slavery  is  enjoined  by  morality  and  sanctioned  by 
religion.  But  the  official  declarations  of  the  South  prove,  and 
no  honest  slaveholder  will  deny,  that  I  have  here  fairly  and  can- 
didly stated  the  leading  article,  never  to  be  relinquished,  of 
their  political  creed. 

Upon  this  doctrine  was  based  that  claim  of  the  South  to  equal 
rights  of  settlement  in  the  Territories,  the  expected  denial  of 
which  was  one  of  the  chief  incentives  to  this  war.  But  it  is  evi- 
dent that  if  the  doctrine  be  tenable  at  all,  it  applies  as  justly  to 
a  State  as  to  a  Territory.  An  Indianian  may  buy  a  Kentucky 
farm  and  settle  thereon  with  all  his  movable  propertv.  Shall 
a  Kentuckian  be  forbidden  to  settle,  in  like  manner,  014  *  farm 
in  Indiana,  unless  he  shall  first  sell  the  most  valuable  movable 
property  he  possesses  ? 

It  is  not  more  certain  that  the  earth  will  continue  to  revolve 
around  the  sun,  than  that  the  South,  while  slaveholding,  will 
persevere,  whenever  and  wherever  she  obtains  the  political  as- 
cendency, in  asserting  and  enforcing  by  law  what  she  regards 
as  her  political  rights  in  this  matter. 

*  If  any  man  doubt  that  this  is  the  claim  maintained  by  the  South,  and  short  of 
•which  she  will  never  be  satisfied,  let  him  read  the  note  on  the  last  page  of  this 
pamphlet,  on  recent  legal  opinions  and  decisions  touching  slaves. 

These  afford  conclusive  proof  that  the  South,  with  the  power  in  her  hands, 
would  declare  null  and  void,  because  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  the  provision  in  the  Constitution  of  Indiana  excluding  negroes.  Should 
we  tolerate  a  similar  provision  excluding  our  horses  and  cattle  from  Kentucky  ? 
A  State  cannot,  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  even  lay  a  duty  on  property 
brought  within  her  limits  from  another  State  ;  far  less,  of  course,  can  she  exclude 
it  altogether. 


12  THE   FUTURE   OF   THE    NORTH-WEST. 

Choose,  then,  farmers  of  Indiana !  citizens  of  the  North-West ! 
Strike  off  twenty-nine  votes  from  the  northern  majority  of  the 
House.  Abandon,  by  the  cession  of  twelve  votes  more,  your 
present  majority  in  the  Senate.  Consent  to  the  dismemberment 
of  your  country.  Relinquish  for  ever  to  the  South  the  balance  of 
legislative  power.  Do  this,  if  you  will.  But  bear  in  mind,  that  on 
the  day  you  assent  to  the  scandalous  compact,  you  will  have  vir- 
tually repealed  that  noble  ORDINANCE  to  which  the  North-West 
owes  not  freedom  only,  but  a  social  and  commercial  prosperity 
far  outstripping  that  of  any  slave-tilled  State.  Bear  in  mind 
that  on  that  day  you  will  have  to  decide,  which  of  two  alterna- 
tives you  will  advise  your  sons  to  select ; — to  regard  honest  la- 
bor as  unbecoming  a  gentleman,  or  to  take  their  chance  of 
working  in  sight  of  the  overseer,  side  by  side  with  the  slave. 

Do  all  thisjjf  good  it  seem  to  you.  I  make  no  argument 
against  it.  Swots,  not  counsels,  are  what  I  offer  you.  I  but 
seek  to  shed  daylight  on  the  slaveholders'  project;  to  show  you, 
beforehand,  what  it  is  you  are  invited  to  do. 

The  invitation  is,  to  unite  your  fate  with  a  slave  empire ;  not 
an  empire  part  free  and  part  slave,  but  an  empire  all  slave ;  an 
empire  in  every  portion  of  which  slavery  will  be  permitted  by 
law,  and  restricted  as  to  the  number  of  slaves  by  soil  and  cli- 
mate alone.  The  invitation  is  to  become,  yourselves,  part  and 
parcel  of  such  an  empire ;  to  enter  into  fellowship  with  those 
who,  not  content  to  legalize  slavery,  canonize  it  also  ;  regard  it  as 
philosophical,  commend  it  as  moral,  extol  it  as  religious :  who 
adopt  it  as  the  corner-stone  of  the  social  edifice  and  the  basis 
of  the  political  system. 

The  invitation  is,  to  ignore,  or  to  defy,  the  public  sentiment 
of  Christendom.  The  invitation  is  to  stand  still,  or  sink  back, 
while  all  other  civilized  nations  advance.  An  eminent  writer, 
alluding  to  certain  ancient  collegiate  foundations  of  Europe, 
declared  that  they  were  not  without  their  use  to  the  historian 
of  the  human  mind :  immovably  moored  to  the  same  station  by 
the  strength  of  their  cables  and  the  weight  of  their  anchors, 
they  served  to  mark  the  rapidity  of  the  current  with  which  the 
rest  of  the  world  was  borne  along.  Is  such  to  be  the  fate  and 
the  vocation  of  America,  once  proud,  powerful,  freedom-loving  ? 
Is  God's  mighty  current  of  Progress  to  sweep  past  her,  as  she 
lies  paralyzed,  weighted  down,  rock-stranded,  by  her  political 
tins  ? 

This  invitation  is  given  on  conditions.  The  first  is,  that 
throughout  this  slave  empire,  no  man  shall  be  allowed  to  deny 
the  "  great  physical,  philosophical,  and  moral  truth",  now  first  re- 
cognized, upon  which  the  new  Government  is  founded ;  namely, 
that  slavery  is  the  natural  and  moral  condition  of  the  African 


THE   FUTURE   OF   THE   NORTH-WEST.  13 

• 

ne^ro  No  man  is  to  be  permitted,  on  pain  of  punishment,  to 
argue  that  slavery  is  sinful,  or  that  religion  condemns  it.  ^  We 
are  required  to  go  back  to  the  spirit  of  those  days  when  it  was 
held  to  be  seditious  to  question,  by  speech  or  writing,  the  idea 
on  which  the  existing  Government  was  based  ;  to  the  Tudor  and 
Stuart  age  of  England :  the  only  difference  being  that  while 
under  the  old  English  rule,  it  was  punishable  as  sedition  to 
question  the  right  divine  of  Kings,  under  the  new  Southern 
rule,  sedition  is  to  be  punished  when  it  questions  the  right  divine 
of  slavery.  It  will  be  a  remarkable  experiment,  in  the  nine- 
teeth  century,  to*  establish  a  government  upon  a  principle  which 
will  not  bear  question,  or  suffer  an  argument  touching  its  truth 
or  its  merits.  The  despotism  of  Naples  recently  went  down, 
crushed  by  the  difficulties  and  the  odium  of  maintaining,  in 
these  modern  days,  a  similar  state  of  things. 

The  second  condition  demanded  of  us  is,  tliat  the  North, 
before  it  is  admitted  to  Southern  fellowship,  shall  cast  off  six  of 
her  States ;  thus  curtailing  her  power  and  her  possessions  by 
the  surrender  of  nearly  one-fifth  of  her  population  and  more 
than  one-fifth  of  her  wealth.  , 

And  here  discloses  itself  the  Hercules  foot  of  this  most  auda- 
cious scheme.  Think  of  proposing  to  Great  Britain,  that  she 
should  set  Scotland  adrift,  or  to  France  that  she  should  detach 
and  abandon  all  Normandy !  When  was  dismemberment  ever 
dreamed  of  or  demanded,  except  by  a  victor  from  a  prostrate 
foe? 

And  will  no  other  demands  be  made  based  on  the  same  rela- 
tive condition  of  the  contracting  parties  ?  The  Southern  insur- 
rection will  have  cost  its  authors  a  thousand  millions,  at  the 
least.  Can  any  man  doubt  that  the  North,  once  entrapped  into 
this  base  compact,  will  be  held  to  pay  her  full  share  of  that  stu- 
pendous sum? — not  only  to  accept  as  justifiable  an  insurrection 
against  lawful  authority,  but  to  pay  what  that  insurrection  cost  ? 
And  will  nothing  be  included  in  that  cost  but  the  bare  expenses 
of  the  war  ?  Is  it  not  certain,  beyond  possible  doubt,  that  there 
will  be  thousands  upon  thousands  of  claims  for  damages — for 
plantations  ruined,  for  dwellings  destroyed,  for  cotton  burnt,  for 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  slaves  lost — from  every  Southern  State 
that  has  been  reached  by  our  arms  ?  and  that  these  claims  will 
amount  to  hundreds  of  millions,  exceeding  probably  the  war 
expenses  themselves  ?  On  whom  is  to  be  imposed  the  enormous 
tax  that  is  to  pay  for  these  ravages  of  war?  On  whom  but  on 
those  who  inflicted  them  ?  And  when  such  a  tax  is  levied  and 
paid  by  you,  what  acknowledgment,  can  be  imagined  more  prac- 
tically conclusive  of  the  admission  that  the  so-called  insurrection 
was  no  insurrection  at  all,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  noble  war  for 


NOTB,  as  to  recent  legal  opinions  and  decisions  touching  slavery.— The  direct  question 
whether  slaves  brought  by  their  masters  to  reside  in  a  Free  State  become  free— in  othor  words, 
whether  a  State  law  be  constitutional  which  declares  free  all  slaves,  not  fugitives,  who  may  come 
within  the  limits  of  the  State,— has  never  been  brought  before  the  Supreme  Court 

But  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  the  opinion  delivered  by  the  Court  was  based  on  principles,  the 
practical  application  of  which  appears  to  establish  the  right  of  an  owner  of  slaves  to  their  "  service 
and  labor"  throughout  life,  no  matter  where  that  life  may  be  spent. 

Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  that  opinion,  declares :  That  negroes  imported  from  Africa,  were 
"brought  here  as  articles  of  merchandise;"  that  in  every  one  of  the  thirteen  colonies  which 
formed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  "  a  negro  of  the  African  race  was  regarded  as  an 
article  of  property,  and  held  and  bought  and  sold  as  such,"  and  that,  at  the  time  the  Constitution 
was  adopted,  the  negro  was  "  treated  as  an  ordinary  article  of  merchandise  and  traffic,  whenever  a 
profit  could  be  made  by  it."  As  such  Chief  Justice  regards  him. 

Dred  Scott,  the  plaintiff  in  this  case,  a  slave  owned  in  Missouri  by  Dr.  Emerson,  had  been 
taken  by  his  owner  into  Illinois,  kept  there  two  years,  then  kept  two  years  in  a  Territory  of  the 
United  States  north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  while  that  Compromise  was  in  force,  and 
had  then  been  brought  back  to  Missouri. 

The  Court,  after  reciting  that  "  Scott  was  a  slave  when  taken  into  the  State  of  Illinois  and 
there  held  a*  *wc&,"  decided  that  .when  brought  back  to  Missouri  he  remained  a  slave,  inasmuch 
as  "  his  status,  as  free  or  slave,  depended  on  the  laws  of  Missouri,  not  of  Illinois" 

So  also  of  his  residence  in  a  Territory  declared  free  by  a  law  of  the  United  States.  The  Court 
heid  the  law  to  be  unconstitutional  and  void,  because  the  Constitution  recognizes  a  slave  as  property^ 
aad  "makes  no  distinction  between  that  property  and  any  other."  And  the  Court  decides  that 
Scott  cannot  be  liberated  under  snch  a  law. 

Though  the  question  did  not  come  before  the  Court  for  decision,  whether  Scott  could  have  been 
held  for  life  as  a  slave  in  Illinois,  yet  it  is  a  fair  inference  from  the  above,  that  that  question  also 
would  be  decided  in  the  affirmative.  Either  Scott,  while  residing  with  Dr.  Emerson  in  Illinois, 
was  his  slave  or  he  was  not.  If  his  slave,  as  the  words  of  Chief  Justice  Taney  would  imply,  then 
slaveholders  may  hold  their  slaves  to  service  and  labor  in  a  Free  State.  If  not  his  slave,  he  was  a 
freeman.  But  if  a  freeman,  how  could  any  law  of  Missouri  be  held  again  to  reduce  him  to  slavery  ? 

In  the  Lemmon  case  (before  the  New  York  Court  of  Appeals,  January,  I860),  in  which  the 
question  came  up,  whether  slaves  owned  by  a  Virginian  in  transit  through  the  State  of  New  York 
became  free,  the  Court  decided  (five  against  three)  in  favor  of  the  slaves.  But  the  arguments  of 
the  counsel  (O'Conor)  assigned  by  the  State  of  Virginia  for  the  slaveowner,  clearly  indicate  the 
character  and  extent  of  Southern  claims  in  this  matter,  and  the  principles  upon  which  these  are 
based.  He  said :  "  Property  in  African  negroes  is  not  an  exception  to  any  general  rule.  Upon 
rational  principles  it  is  no  more  local  or  peculiar  than  any  other  property."  And  he  argued  that  a 
State  has  the  same  right  to  declare  a  wife  who  might  be  brought  within  its  limits  to  be  "free 
from  all  obligations  of  that  condition,"  as  to  declare  the  same  thing  of  a  slave. 

It  is  to  be  conceded  that  no  Court  has  yet  made  a  decision  in  conformity  with  the  claims  here 
put  forth,  on  behalf  of  Virginia.  But  can  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  rights  demanded  by  the 
South  be  doubted  or  misunderstood  ?  And  whenever  a  Senate  with  a  perpetual  Southern  majority 
shall  have  the  control  of  nominations  for  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  is  it  not  morally  certaia 
Uiat  the  decision,  in  the  premises,  of  Judges  thus  selected  will  be  in  favor  of  Virginia's  claims  ? 


